The Happily Ever After to Once Upon a Time
by Justee
Summary: Canon up to the final episode of season 1 and then AU: With Henry's life at stake in his poison apple induced coma, Regina makes the impossibly difficult decision to break her own curse in order to save the son that she loves.


**Henry remains in his apple turnover induced coma. Regina knows that the only way to save Henry is to break her own curse by using true love, her true love for Henry. She loves Henry more than she craves revenge so she decides to break her own curse by kissing Henry and waking him up.**

**Part of the curse being broken means that Regina's own true love, Daniel returns to her. Because Good has power over Evil, Daniel never really died. Although Cora is powerful, there is one thing she cannot touch and that one thing is true love. The magic and strong true love coursing through Daniel's veins saved him. He fled upon waking bleeding in that barn and had been in hiding from Cora all of this time. When the curse was cast and everyone was sent to Storybrooke, Daniel remained in Fairy Tale Land. Regina upon casting this spell, unknowingly took away Daniel's happy ending too: his chance of being with her. The breaking of the curse causes the two worlds to collide. Storybrooke is once again Fairy Tale Land:**

She cannot even make sense of it all. As Regina stares at her comatose son, so sweetly sleeping—if only it were just that—she replays the same thoughts over and over and her head, trying to figure out how she caused all of this to happen—how she let the curse take the only people that she has ever cared about, her father and her son. As Mayor Mills she was authoritative, she didn't let her heartstrings influence her mind. Now she wonders what that was all for. She couldn't let herself truly process what she had done because her life in Storybrooke was just as empty as it was in Fairy Tale Land—perhaps even more so without her father. Now as she watches Henry's chest rise and fall she realizes that he was the only thing she had that caused her heart to feel. He was the only thing in Storybrooke that ever changed.

She thinks of all the people she despises, how she has kept Snow White and Prince Charming from being together. It doesn't even bring a smile to her face as it used to. Images from her past are spinning through her mind in a different perspective. Little Snow's pain, her love for her parents, the tragic loss of both of them, the child's desire for a mother…her own desire for the love of a mother. Destroying Snow didn't change the pain in her heart. It didn't solve anything. After raising a child she tried to put it out of her mind when she thought about little snow, looking up to her the way Henry did with large watery eyes. She was just a child, he is just a child. They make mistakes. She would never punish Henry the way she did Snow for an innocent mistake. Henry, helpless and motherless as an infant was just as helpless as little snow—her long brown curls resembling her own. She had a chance to be a mother then. She had a chance to give Snow what she never had from Cora. Regina shakes her head, forcing herself to stop thinking about Snow White but yet she can't. If she breaks this curse, everything she has sacrificed to keep Snow and Charming from being happy will have been for naught. She has to have had a reason to do it. It had to have been the right decision. She studies Henry's pouty lips and blushing cheeks. He is the same baby she used to watch sleep at night. She leans into Henry, letting the tears fall from her eyes—hoping no one can see her like this. She is the strong and ruthless Mayor Mills…But Mayor Mills has a son. Everything changes when your child is sick. She takes his face into her hands and presses her forehead on his. Her tears fall upon Henry's cheeks, turning to glittering tears, chemically changed by her true emotion—her true love. She opens her eyes and studies Henry's long lashes. He has always been such a beautiful boy with his long lashes and he puppy dog eyes. She would give anything to see them open again.

Emma watches Regina in the background. She looks down to her feet. She wishes that she would have had the time with Henry that Regina did but it is clear to see—she is his mother. So this is what became of that baby she let go all of those years ago—she let him go so that he could have a chance at a better life only to die an early death. She is nauseated at this thought and turns to sit in the waiting room until Regina leaves.

Regina lays her head next to Henry's on his pillow—stroking his cheek: her little boy, her baby boy, her curious little kid. She knows that this is what true love feels like. True love is something she has only ever had taken from her, that's why she doesn't use its sickening power…but this is different. This is her baby. She inhales sharply as everything fits together in her chaotic mind. She knows she can save him, but only if she undoes her own curse. She has no idea what will happen as she kisses the boy on his little cheeks, salty with her own tears but whatever was worth destroying Storybrook when she didn't have Henry is of little importance now. All that matters to Regina at this moment is saving her son, finally showing him the love she has felt for him, finally letting true love have a place in her life. Everything is too much for her, her world is spinning, and all she can do is kiss her soon over and over again on his round baby-faced cheeks.

That's when he opens his eyes. Regina cannot speak. Her eyes lock and meet his and then everything goes black. The world begins to shake and she tries to hang on to the railings of Henry's hospital bed. His hands reach for hers and everything else is lost.

After the quake, the dust begins to settle and Regina opens her eyes. She stands upon whatever has crumbled beneath her. She wonders if she has died. She did see him open his eyes, didn't she? Regina sees Daniel amid the chaos. She inhales, holds her breath. She cannot believe or trust what she sees as he approaches. Tears form in her eyes and her hands begin to tremble. It is too much to take in and she falls to the ground—fainting. Daniel kneels down and cradles her head in his hands. He brings her lips towards his, studying for a moment her perfectly shaped, luscious lips. He gently touches the scar above her lip, he brushes the stray hair away from her eyes and kisses her for the first time in what feels like an eternity.

At this, true love's kiss, Regina awakens and exhales the darkness that her mother had forced into her for years during her childhood. She is finally free. Free from her mother, free from dark magic. Daniel clutches Regina tightly and takes her in his arms. She is too weak to stand on her own. She begins wildly scanning the land for her little boy. Henry climbs out of the rubble investigating his surroundings, looking down at his tattered Hospital gown and his lack of shoes. His eyes widen and sparkle as he realizes where he is—he is in the place he has wanted to be his whole life. He runs to join the happy reunited couple, thrilled, of course by his mother's happiness and freedom from the darkness. Regina kneels and opens her arms for Henry to run right into.

"You did it! You did it! I knew you had good in you! I knew-"Regina cuts him off smothering his face into her chest and covering his head with kisses.

"Daniel!" he gasps pulling away from her long enough to breathe. Henry looks up at him and smiles.

He looks down, confused. "My boy." Regina says. "My little boy" and she brings him closer to her once again.

"Oy" he grunts, he looks up at Regina, "so that's how you did it? You found Daniel? You and Daniel were the ones who saved Storybrooke? With your love?"

"No baby," She says with a smile. "It was you. I love _you._ You saved us all you smart little bugger. You knew more than I did and I'm so proud of you…but so upset that you ate that apple turnover! Don't forget _that_!" She said sternly but squeezed the boy tightly against her chest.

"Ugh, can't, breathe!" Henry said laughing.

Other families and friends are finding one another with many tearful reunions—like the reunion of Snow White and Prince Charming-And Emma, oh Emma. She looks into her parents' eyes and laughs…that's all she can do with a completely unfathomable experience such as this. Snow White takes Emma into her arms and begins to sob. Charming wraps his arms around the two and tears also come to his eyes. Snow sobs for missing so much of Emma's life but also out of happiness for finally having her back.

Regina is filled with happiness in a way that she has never been before. Of course there will be a lot of things to sort out with the townspeople and especially with The Charmings but she doesn't care about those little details right now. She surveys the land and suddenly her heart aches with sadness for her father, seeing all of the places the two of them used to spend time together. Regina stands, steadied by Daniel, and steps over the ruins to a small, grassy clearing, a very significant place marked by a large boulder. Henry follows behind. Henry and Daniel each grasp one of her hands as she stops.

"This is where I started it all" she says hoarsely. "How could I…" she stops—Daniel looking at her quizzically. "I did it after losing you." She said, looking into his sweet warm eyes. "I don't know. I thought it was the only way to find peace—to destroy everyone else's." She sits down on the boulder. "I was tricked. I killed my own father. I thought…" Tears roll down her face, "—my best friend—the only person I had, I took his heart out. I used his it for this curse, this curse that cursed even me! I was left without my father; I was without my true love and now what?" Regina said dryly—tears still streaming down her cheeks.

"but…without the curse you wouldn't have me!" Henry points out.

Regina furrows her brow, trying to put together all of the events that led her to where she stands today with Henry on one hand and Daniel on the other. The love she has always wanted. What would have happened if she had never cast the curse? Are we really even in control of our own destiny? Or has it always been fate in control?

Daniel is beyond confused at this point but he knows that he has been away from her for a long time, that pain changes people. He too has done things he regrets to try to get her back. He is concerned for her, he has never seen her so emotional—so happy and then so sad, so broken and so complete, so confused but yet still so "Regina," still so beautiful and so composed. Still so perfectly gorgeous, still his one true love.

"You took his heart?" Henry asked.

Regina looked into his innocent eyes, his pale face now covered with soot. She wishes that he didn't have to know what evil she has done. She looks to the ground and takes a deep breath,swallows. How would she even find words to explain the mistakes that she has made? "I wish you could have met him." She says softly, "the good man that I named you after."

"What if we could find it?" He said.

Regina tries to formulate the words to ask the boy what in the world he is talking about.

"His heart! What if we could find it and return it to him! He isn't gone forever. We have magic now! We have more true love than we've _ever_ had in Storybooke. Anything is possible Mom!" He said. "We can put everything back together again!"

And Regina smiled. Not only because she thought that he might be on to something, he _has _been right about everything else so far… but she smiled. She smiled because after everything she had done, after everything Henry had been through, he called her Mom. He called her Mom and wanted to help her. He loved her.

And they all lived happily ever after!


End file.
